221–230 of 264 posts
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Why not add the smarts to a lead/acid battery? Probably only a few bucks worth of electronics.
Or as a separate component you could drop in and then use whatever battery you want. I'd pay almost as much for that.
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You're right! Lead acid car batteries are one of the great recycling success stories. What's interesting is that the volume of lead acid car batteries in the world is so high, that even at that high recycling rate, that still leaves 24 million pounds of lead each year from car batteries that don't get recycled. There's also been some problems recently with lead recycling plants contaminating the environment [1]. You'…
Some thoughts: The price point is impressive if you can sell at only ~$50 more than a standard lead-acid battery. If pressed to find a flaw, I think the biggest is one you've already identified: There’s one: you can’t run your lights and/or stereo as long with your engine turned off. Ohm’s battery reserve comes in at 10 amp hours; most lead-acid car batteries come in at about 45 amp hours. If you can run your stereo…
Your battery is broken or you have a near-short somewhere. I sit in my cheap-ass Jeep for 45 minutes a week listening to the radio for 5 times a week and have for years. Replace it, if it doesn't work seek professional repair.
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Few owners of modern luxury cars do their own maintenance.
I find working on my car to be very relaxing after sitting in front of a computer all day. There's also something viscerally satisfying about it. Of course, that's why I'm an engineer :-)
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In the more familiar unit of "swimming pools", it looks like it might be around 10.
Actually I get substantially less than that. Olympic sized pool = 164ft x 82ft x 9ft 10 inches = 132, 300ft^3. Density of lead: 709 lbs per ft^3. So a single Olympic-sized pool would weight almost 94,000,000 lbs if filled with lead. (If you really want to blow your mind, that same pool would weight almost 200 million lbs if filled with Osmium, the most dense element. Of course, that's WAY WAY more than the amount of…
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Headlight != radio. The headlights can be easily 150watt. I doubt the radio uses more than 15.
Are led headlights a similar draw?
If there were led headlights (or fluorescent for that matter) you should expect the draw to be about 1/5 that number.
That number includes marker and tail lights and those can be LED, so the number would be lower in that case.
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Will you be making a version for amateur/semi pro race car drivers? They are always looking to shave off weight so it can be redistributed in the way they want. Being able to cut 30lbs would be a big deal.
Ohm can be used for racing, assuming the rules of the race don't require using a stock battery. A lot of our early users and testers actually come from the racing community.
The full lithium batteries are too expensive, and or don't provide enough starting amps.
Have these guys tried to start atmospheric diesel at -20 C? That capacity is absurdly low. I roll my 80 hp diesel with 7 times the capacity.
I see no benefit at all - you take something reliable as hell, make it unrealiable by adding hardware and software, reduce the capacity, just to shave 20 pounds of weight of a 3000 pound car.
If it was normal sized battery with some smarts - it could have been useful. But the current incarnation is - works only in the very moderate climates with mild winters.
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Are led headlights a similar draw?
I am not aware of any led headlights. Not in the US anyway. All the ones I know about have LED only for daytime running lamps and high beams. If there were led headlights (or fluorescent for that matter) you should expect the draw to be about 1/5 that number. That number includes marker and tail lights and those can be LED, so the number would be lower in that case.
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In Arizona, you're lucky if it lasts for 2 years. Batteries don't like being in 120 degree heat all day or something.
I've lived in both Cambridge, MA and Scottsdale, AZ, and my batteries routinely die in under 2 years. I think it's mostly a function of my (infrequent) driving habits.